Rónán Mullen (Independent)
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I will make two final points about the two specialist physicians requirement. First, it is known that the requirement in Britain to have the signatures of two doctors has been widely flouted on occasion. There is evidence, and needless to say this committee did not seek the evidence, of pre-signed letters of authorisation from doctors. That is a chilling reminder of how this law can easily be abused.

Second, references to best available medical evidence is a euphemism. The people, who this committee considers vectors of the best available medical evidence, spoke in terms of requiring abortion on request. In fact, their evidence always operated to reject distinctions between health grounds and a more general dealing with abortion on the grounds of a request. In one particularly chilling case we heard doctors speak in a very blasé fashion about late term abortions and that we should not be distracted by late term abortions of children even for a trivial reason like a cleft palate.